This invention is concerned with a stay for hinged members and more particularly with a stay for retaining the open position of the cover of a suitcase or other receptacle having a hinged cover.
This invention is an improvement upon the stay or toggle brace of U.S. Pat. No. 1,779,281, granted Oct. 21, 1930 to A. Levine and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention. One advantage of the Levine stay is that the stay does not require manual "breaking" to permit the cover of a case to be closed when desired. Other stays of the prior art are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 103,181; 154,555; 766,917; 1,131,366; and 2,442,955.
Prior art stays, such as disclosed in the Levine patent, employ a pair of arms which turn relatively about a pivot pin from a collapsed position to an extended position at which the arms are releasably retained by a detent mechanism. Prior detent mechanisms employ a ball or dimple in rolling or sliding contact with one of the arms under heavy pressure, resulting in significant wear. Moreover, prior stays have had rather high manufacturing, tooling, and assembly costs.